Essential Parts of A Business Letter

Essential Parts of A Business Letter :

ESSENTIAL PARTS OF A BUSINESS LETTER

A business letter, unlike a friendly letter must have a heading. On the first line, write your apartment number, postal box, rural route number and your street address1 (whatever applies to your address). The second line gives your city, town or village and the province name, and postal code. On the third line, write the month, the day and the year you are writing the letter. Never write your name as part of the heading of a letter.

2342 54th Street
Sussex, NB E4C 1T0

June 26 - 1999

The inside address is placed at the left margin, two spaces below the heading and contains the receiver’s full name, title and address.

Do not use abbreviations for words like Street, Avenue, First or East as part of street or city name. Do not write a dash or hyphen between the two sections of the postal code.

The salutation is placed two spaces below the inside address. If you don’t know the person well, use his/her full name and title in the salutation. If you do know him/her well, you would use his/her full name and title in the inside address and his/her first name in the salutation. In situation where you don’t know whether the reader is male or female, you may find something like….

Dear Customer Service

Representative or Attention : Billing Department….suitable

305-19 Maple Avenue
Hampton, NB E4N 3C3
January 13 – 2009

Ms. Elizabeth Jackson

Manager

Treasurer

Salisbury Foods

22333 Centre Boulevard

St. George - NB E3N 2H6

Dear Ms. Jackson, or Dear Liz, (if you know her well)

The body of the letter is, of course, what the letter is all about. It begins two spaces below the salutation. You should single space within paragraphs and double space between them. The body of many business letters contains three paragraphs (although they don’t all have to have five sentences). The first paragraph should state the problem or situation clearly. The second paragraph should explain in specific detail the reason for writing. The third and final paragraph should make a specific request for action and close with courtesy. Here’s a sample body.

Dear Mr. Franklin.

We would like to invite you to speak at our annual Career Days Forum next month.

The event will take place at the Learning Centre in Sackville, New Brunswick, on April 23, 1999, from 10:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. We have invited a number of business people to give half hour presentations about the skills and training required to gain employment in their field. Many of the students are interested in learning about marketing and management in the technology industry, and your experience in this area would be most welcome.

Please call Marion Stacey at (506) 443-9900 to let us know if you will be able to attend and to arrange a time slot for your presentation. We will gladly arrange for any audio-visual equipment you may need.

Thank you for considering our request.

The conclusion of all letters is a brief phrase showing respect called the complimentary closing which is placed two spaces below the body. Only the first word of this closing is capitalized. Four or five spaces below this, the writer’s typed signature (and title, if appropriate) should appear. The sender of the letter should write his/her signature between the complimentary closing and the typed signature.

Yours truly,

Christina Sharp

Christina Sharp

Most letters should be kept short and concise, but if a second page is required, arrange the body so that at least two of its lines appear on the second page. This second page should also have a heading that contains the recipient’s name, the page number, and the date on which the letter was prepared. There are two possible styles.